The Inspiration4 crew of Chris Sembroski, Sian Proctor, Jared Isaacman, and Hayley Arceneaux poses while suited up for a launch rehearsal in Cape Canaveral, Florida on September 12, 2021. Picture was taken September 12, 2021. Inspiration4/John Kraus/Handout via REUTERS
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — The four would-be citizen astronauts poised to ride a SpaceX rocket ship around the globe as the first all-civilian crew launched into orbit said Tuesday they were eager for liftoff on the eve of their flight, feeling only “the good kind” of jitters.
“I was just worried that this moment would never come in my life. Let’s get going, let’s do it,” said Sian Proctor, 51, a geoscience professor, artist, and lifelong space enthusiast who was a 2009 finalist in NASA’s astronaut candidate program before she was cut.
Proctor also disclosed she and her flight mates received a telephone call from one of her personal heroes, former first lady Michelle Obama, wishing them well, an honor she said “would stay with me the rest of my life.”
The “Inspiration4” quartet is due for liftoff as early as 8 p.m. on Wednesday (0000 GMT) from launch complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, for an orbital flight expected to last about three days before splashdown.
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Proctor and her crewmates – billionaire e-commerce executive and jet pilot Jared Isaacman, 38, physician assistant Hayley Arceneaux, 29, and aerospace data engineer Chris Sembroski, 42 – took reporters’ questions at a pre-launch briefing inside a SpaceX hangar a little more than 24 hours before launch time.
Behind them, visible in the distance through the hangar’s open doors, stood the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule designed to carry them to a targeted orbital altitude of 360 miles (575 km) over the Earth – higher than the International Space Station.
